Healthy Holiday Dessert Makeovers

I’m Jewish. This is our time for holiday celebrations. Typically these holidays are laden with saturated fat, meat, and sugar. This upcoming holiday, Yom Kippur, celebrates the new year. We eat sweet things to hope for a sweet year ahead. We wish each other a Happy Healthy New Year, and then consume foods that are ready to give you a heart attack. Seriously I am not kidding! Cream cheese, noodle koogles, egg salads, and tuna salads are the typical fare. Not to worry at my house! I will allow people to bring that food in, but it’s not what I serve. My buffet will have veggies, hummus, vegan zucchini patties, confetti quinoa salad, my tuna-less salad (made form chickpeas), and possibly a vegan quiche if I can get it all together! I decided to remake 2 of my favorite holiday desserts this year and plant-base them on up. The results were great! If you are vegan and do not eat honey, no problem. Swap out the honey in these recipes for maple syrup. I wouldn’t use agave, as it doesn’t provide any prominent flavor, and for a replacement (especially for the honey cake), you’ll want more flavor.

For those of you unfamiliar with a honey cake, it should be moist and delicious, with rich flavors. In addition to being plant-based, these recipes are also gluten free. The honey cake uses an all-purpose blend of flour (I use King Arthur). The honey cake does have some oil added. If you’d like to have a completely oil-free cake, you can replace the oil with almond butter. I needed a nut-free cake so I didn’t try this. If you do, I’d love to hear how it turns out! The Apple Spice Cake, is oil free, and uses almond meal and oat flour, both of which I make from grinding the almonds and oats separately. You can take the spice cake further, and make it grain free if desired, but using all almond meal.

All in all, we can take our traditional foods and replace them with healthier versions. Don’t be afraid to try to take Grandma’s cookie recipe and veganize it, cut the oil, and the sugar. It might not be exactly the same, but should it really be anyways?

Happy and healthy new year to those of you who celebrate it! L’shana tova! To all of you who don’t, make these anyways, or save these treats for your upcoming calorie laden holidays!